FIONA SHAW

"Last Days Of The Enclave"

Fiona Shaw's Art investigates the power and the impotence of language and words. How once they are recorded in literature, song or film they are somehow validated and imbued with a power. The words of a pop song might become so much more profound than those of a politician's public address, if heard at just the right moment in time.

Language allows us to join together to express affection and align ourselves with belief systems and faiths. Equally it allows us to categorise our differences, to organise widespread conflict and to spread hate and fear. It is this duplicitous nature that Fiona explores in her work. Fiona's text sculptures take language out of context and proclaim them as grand statements. We are being spoken to with authority but we are not entirely sure what about. In this way they reflect one of the realities of language: that we are drawn in while always held at arm's length from the truth.